His Girl Friend Exposed Me as Escort Amid Double Joy

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At the exact moment my engagement party with Caleb Gilbert hit its high point, my graduate recommendation spot was announced.

This was what Caleb called a double blessing.

His female friend, standing off to the side, looked a little sour, and a moment later she dropped a line in our university class group chat.

"What's there to congratulate about a recommendation spot? Some people can get one lying down."

"And my silly boy actually announces it in front of everyone at the engagement party."

My mother collapsed from the shock. I was dumped in front of the whole room.

Then I was torn apart online, someone posted a photo of my work badge as a female escort, and in the end I died of depression.

When I opened my eyes again, I was staring at that comment. "An escort getting a graduate recommendation, absurd!"

Without hesitation I took a screenshot, tagged Sheila Matthews in the group, and typed, "The place I supposedly worked as an escort, the type of work, my hourly rate, send it all over so everyone can see."

"You have ten minutes. If it's not up, I'm calling the police."

...

The big screen at the engagement party displayed my tag calling out Sheila Matthews.

She probably never imagined I'd fight back. Last time I didn't. This time was different. I wasn't just going to fight back, I was going to grab hold and not let go.

The lively party had erupted a moment ago because of Sheila's line. Now it broke into noise again because of mine.

My boyfriend Caleb's face had gone stiff. I ignored him, grabbed the mic out of the host's hand, and pressed Sheila where she sat below the stage.

"Sheila..."

I'd barely gotten the word out when Sheila shot up from her seat, her whole face impatient.

"Did I say anything? I just saw you got the recommendation and made a little joke with my silly boy, isn't that right, silly boy?"

Sheila thought all this silly-boy cooing sounded so sweet, never realizing that both sets of elders at the engagement party found it grating.

Caleb froze for a beat, then rushed to answer. "That's right, Freya Cox, today is our engagement party, and the day you got your recommendation. It's a double blessing. Don't be upset."

I turned to look at him. He and I had been together since freshman year. He got into grad school last year; I earned my recommendation this year.

Caleb had deliberately picked our engagement day to fall on the day the recommendation was announced, saying he wanted a double blessing.

A perfectly good dish, only someone had spoiled the broth.

The Caleb in front of me now wore this ingratiating look. Last time, after Sheila's little expos, he'd panicked, and in the end he never once stood by me. All he did the whole time was try to smooth things over.

Last time, it was precisely because of how Caleb treated me that Sheila went on to post my work badge as a female escort, along with photos from the nightclub.

She really did nail the story of me being a high-end female escort into place, once and for all.

My mother had come to my engagement party happy, and then she got word of my recommendation, and she was happy about that too, but Sheila's expos yanked us from the clouds straight into the dirt.

The party crowd buzzed. The Gilbert family couldn't take the pressure and announced the broken engagement right there.

My mother fainted from the fury of it.

This time Sheila hadn't yet produced her so-called evidence. I was going to beat her to it.

I gave a cold laugh, staring at Caleb's face. "This was supposed to be a double blessing, and now your dear friend has ruined it."

"Caleb, I'm not going through with this engagement."

I pulled the flower off my chest as I spoke, and under everyone's stunned stares I walked down the steps and left with my mother. I thought that if I called off the engagement first this time, I'd stop Sheila from throwing out even more fabricated accusations, that at the very least I could hold on to my recommendation spot, and lessen the harm to my mother.

I got Mom out of the engagement party, and my phone wouldn't stop buzzing with new messages.

I opened them. They were from Sheila. She called it an apology, but the moment she opened her mouth it was the same filth thrown at me all over again.

"All I said was that she could pull it off lying down. That just means Freya's got natural talent, that she doesn't have to kill herself to get results this good. I was praising her ability to learn. If she took it the wrong way, that's on her own guilty conscience."

The way Sheila spun it, everyone believed the worst of me even more.

"Right, she didn't actually say anything. Why would Freya react so hard over it?"

"Maybe there really is something to it with this Freya."

My university group chat blew up. And that group wasn't just classmates. The advisors were in it too.

It didn't take long before my advisor called.

"Freya, regarding your graduate recommendation, the school has decided to freeze your spot for now. Don't worry, once we've gotten to the bottom of this, we'll clear your name."

After I hung up, my anger hit its limit. I never imagined that even with a second life, Sheila could still reach me and drag me down.

Mom sat beside me, her face full of worry. "Frey, what exactly is going on between that Sheila girl and Caleb? She smears you, and on top of that she's so close with him. You'd better watch out."

Before I could answer her, Sheila tagged me in the group again. "Freya, I was only joking, and you go telling my son you want to call off the engagement. Your relationship can't take much testing, can it? You should know my son won't wait around for you forever."

Sheila played the saint and lectured me, and under her message came another long string of voices questioning me.

"Freya actually called off the engagement? There's definitely something wrong with her. Sheila already said it was just a joke."

I stared at the messages in the group. I hadn't posted a single word in there, and the mood right now was not on my side.

On the way out I'd already called the police and laid out my situation. The station said that words alone couldn't establish anything at this point, and there was no way they'd arrest her over it.

Whenever someone posted something against me in the group, I screenshotted it and saved it. All of it would become evidence of how they'd slandered me.

During all this, Caleb messaged me to explain that Sheila had just spoken too quickly, that she was only joking.

But I knew Sheila's motives were nowhere near that simple.

I texted him back: I've already filed a report with the police. Tell Sheila to be careful.

The second I sent it, Caleb called.

I wanted to hear what he had to say, so I picked up.

"Freya, do you really have to blow this up? Sheila's my best friend. What bad intentions could she have? You're reading way too much into it."

"I'm reading too much into it? Do you have any idea, Caleb? Because of that line she thinks was a joke, my advisor has already told me my recommendation spot is being frozen."

"How much I gave up for that spot, other people might not know, but you know. Don't you?"

"At the engagement party, did you say one word for me?"

The string of questions left Caleb with nothing to say.

"You didn't say anything for me. Caleb, even if we weren't a couple, you know what I went through to get that recommendation. You still should have said something for me."

Caleb and I got together freshman year, and from the very start I knew he had a girl he called his best friend.

He was a year ahead of me. Sheila was in my year.

Because of her, almost every date the two of us went on came with Sheila's shadow attached.

The thing Caleb said most about Sheila was that she had no hidden angles, that she was easygoing, that she was practically one of the guys.

She was his best friend, so whenever she went a little too far, I made myself not see it.

The truth was, Sheila had never once taken me seriously.

On our dates she'd hook her arm through Caleb's whenever she felt like it, kiss him on the cheek whenever she felt like it.

Every time, Caleb would explain it away, and Sheila would put on her fake little act and beg me to forgive her.

I ate their poisoned sweetness for a long, long time.

Senior year Caleb got into grad school, and he pushed me to go on for a graduate degree with him.

I agreed. That whole senior year I practically lived in the lab.

Caleb felt bad for me, and to his credit he never blamed me for having less time to spend with him.

Some nights I didn't come out of the lab until the small hours, and he'd wait for me the whole time without complaint.

It was exactly that year, the year of my graduate recommendation, and the way we stayed close through it, that carried us all the way to getting engaged.

The way Caleb stood by me through that whole recommendation process made me believe his heart had always centered on me.

But at today's engagement party, all he did was keep insisting Sheila was only joking.

He hadn't considered me for a second. A man like that wasn't worth spending my life on.

The wretched scenes from my last life still surface in front of me all the time. My mother raised me alone, and it wasn't easy. This time around, I'm going to protect her.

I ended the conversation with Caleb. I knew Sheila, and someone with her temperament would never let it go.

Sure enough, that same night I got a call from my advisor.

"Freya, this situation of yours has caused a bit of a stir. The department has decided to put your graduate recommendation spot on hold for now."

Professor Lambert had always treated me well. For her to call me about this herself, she must have reached the point where she couldn't hold the line for me anymore.

"I understand, Professor. Thank you."

That wasn't even the worst of it. Early the next morning, my roommate Wendy Austin called.

"Frey, go look at the school forum right now. Someone posted a work badge saying you're an escort, and screenshots from a private room. The pictures are all really blurry. I could tell at a glance it isn't you, but there are way too many blind people out there, and they're all insisting it's you."

I thanked Wendy and logged into the school forum.

Sure enough, there it was, the headline blaring: "Escort Lands a Grad Recommendation. Ridiculous."

The write-up was detailed, put together like someone writing a novel, dressed up and vivid.

The images were a blurry work badge and a few dim shots of someone working at a club.

The thread already had thousands of comments, and the heat was still climbing. I knew this was Sheila's handiwork.

I saved a screenshot of the forum's main page, then went online and looked up the IP address behind the post. As I expected, it traced back to Sheila.

The Sheila of this life was still just as full of zeal, still just as ready to pin crimes I never committed on me.

Good. I'd filed a police report and had been worried about not having evidence.

Wendy messaged me again: The talk around campus is bad right now. I'm worried it'll go against you, so maybe don't come to school for a few days.

I knew Wendy meant well. But I had to go. I needed to find evidence that would work in my favor.

I texted her back: Thanks, hon. I'll be at school soon.

And once I got there, I realized I'd made exactly the right call.

No wonder Wendy had told me not to come to campus. It turned out I'd already become everyone's target.

Besides the thread still boiling on the school forum, little posters of me were stuck up on bulletin boards all over campus.

Princess No. 3 of Mansion Eight, Escort No. 36 of the Enigma dynasty. Apparently I led a very rich double life.

I photographed each one as I passed.

By the time I reached my dorm building, Wendy was tearing a poster off the door outside our room. Her little face was flushed with fury, and she looked ready to fight anyone who came near.

"Our Frey isn't that kind of person. Don't you dare slander her."

Wendy was going at it with a few of Sheila's cronies. One of them shoved her hard, and she went down.

I walked toward them, phone up, filming the whole thing.

"Everything you're doing right now, I'll pay it all back to you one day, twice over."

I stared at the three of them, expressionless. The moment they saw the camera, they panicked and bolted.

I sent Wendy back to the dorm and went to find Sheila.

I'd just reached the door of Sheila's room when I caught the conversation inside.

"You have no idea, when I heard Caleb Gilbert and Freya Cox were getting engaged, I was so worried for Shelly. I thought she was just going to hand them over to each other, no fight at all."

Another voice let out a cold little snort. "As if. Shelly's said it all along, she and Caleb are the real thing."

The line turned my stomach. I was about to push the door open when a voice message came in from Wendy.

I quickly stepped aside and picked up. "Wendy..."

"Frey, hurry over to Professor Lambert's, please. These rumormongers are unbelievable. Professor Lambert only said a few words in your defense, and now they've turned on her too."

"They're saying Professor Lambert was selling herself right along with you."

These utterly heartless creatures. Last life they hounded me and my mother to death. This life I got my mother out of harm's way early, and now they'd turned their aim on the teacher who'd been kindest to me.

I would never let them off easy.

Walking, I texted Wendy: Wendy, help me get in touch with that senior of ours over at the law school. Have him draw up a complaint for me about Sheila slandering me.

Wendy and Burton Delgado from our law school had gone to the same high school, and she'd mentioned him to me once at a mixer. He was the only person I could think of right now.

I had Sheila's contact, so I sent her a message: Sheila, I'm warning you not to push your luck. Knock it off while you can. You want Caleb Gilbert? He's yours, take him. But if you dare hurt Professor Lambert, I'll come at you with everything I've got.

After I sent it, there was no reaction from Sheila. She's actually sharp. She knew that at a moment like this, saying more wouldn't necessarily help her, so silence was the smart move.

No reply from her, no matter. My plan wasn't changing.

On my way to find Professor Lambert, I called Caleb Gilbert.

The second the call connected, Caleb acted like I'd be the one begging him.

"Freya, I told you, throw your little tantrum and be done with it. Don't take it so seriously. Think about it, who else would want you if you left me?"

The line was so absurd I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Why had I ever loved this man? And who exactly had handed him that sense of superiority?

"Caleb Gilbert, I'm formally notifying you. Pass this along to Sheila. I'm going to sue her, officially. She can sit and rot in a cell."

When Caleb heard that, his voice suddenly climbed.

"Freya, what the hell are you trying to do? I already told you, Shelly was just joking. Do you really have to blow it up into some huge deal?"

"This time I'm blowing it up into a huge deal. You and your girl-buddy can go off together, only it'll probably be in prison."